A Labour Ministry decision setting religious holidays for Christians has drawn widespread criticism for failing to ensure full equality among Egypt’s denominations. Critics describe it as unjust and discriminatory on sectarian grounds, and inconsistent with the equal citizenship guaranteed by the constitution.
In an effort to address the controversy, Labour Minister Mohamed Gobran met on Tuesday with MP Freddy al-Bayadi, a member of the General Evangelical Council, and the Evangelical community’s representative and head, the Reverend Dr Andrea Zaki, to discuss Christian holiday arrangements. Al-Bayadi called for uniform holidays for all Christians, treating them as shared occasions supporting citizenship and equality rather than discrimination.
Gobran issued the decision on December 30, 2025, specifying religious holidays for Christians subject to the Labour Law. The ministry said it followed consideration of the constitution, the new Labour Law and earlier Cabinet and ministry decisions, and aimed to reinforce citizenship and equality while respecting religious particularity and maintaining workplace stability.
Effective the day after publication in the Egyptian official gazette, the decision states that Christians are entitled, in addition to the holidays in Article 3 of Labour Minister’s Decision No. 294 of 2025, to religious holiday leave in accordance with the relevant prime ministerial decision.
Ishak Ibrahim, the researcher responsible for freedom of religion and belief at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, considers the wording unsuccessful both linguistically and substantively. It implements a Labour Law provision requiring the competent minister to specify non-Muslims’ holidays, yet its wording and application reveal a clear flaw, he says.
He told Zawia3 that its opening uses language unsuitable for official correspondence or legislation. He sees it as language from a majority addressing a minority, inconsistent with the citizenship and equality that should govern administrative and legal decisions.
The second, more serious problem, he says, lies in the substance: religious holidays are divided using wording almost copied from a 1953 decision, without considering more than seventy years of change in constitutions, society, relations between citizens and the state, or understandings of religious and social occasions.
Some listed occasions, such as New Year, are not exclusively religious but cultural and social celebrations with a global character, Ibrahim notes. Christmas is already an official holiday under an earlier presidential decision. The new measure creates questions about how an employee’s denomination will be determined: by their own declaration, or by requiring official evidence such as a certificate from a religious institution? Either approach opens additional administrative and legislative complications.
“These complications empty the decision of its basic purpose: organising religious holidays and preventing potential disputes between employee and employer. In its current form, it creates additional workplace confusion rather than solving the problem. It also entails clear discrimination, not just religious but sectarian,” Ibrahim said. He stressed that the constitution and citizenship principles prohibit discrimination in rights and duties on religious or denominational grounds.
In response, Egypt’s Catholic Church issued an official statement expressing regret that the decision failed to achieve full equality among Christian denominations, particularly concerning Catholic holidays. It said this was inconsistent with constitutionally guaranteed equal citizenship.
The January 3 statement by Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac, Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria and head of Egypt’s Council of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops, said Catholics are an integral part of the nation and the decision does not fit the state’s national approach based on justice and respect for diversity.
The Evangelical community also wrote formally to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. The letter, signed by its head, the Reverend Dr Andrea Zaki, urged uniform holidays for all Egyptian Christians, saying this would strengthen citizenship, equality and national unity.
Father Rafic Greiche, the Catholic Church’s media spokesperson in Egypt, sees a clear conceptual flaw. Reusing and adapting an old decision this way is unacceptable, he says, and fails to reflect the state’s development or its constitutional commitment to citizenship and non-discrimination. He considered it inappropriate for a minister, questioning the political and constitutional judgment behind it.
“It is unacceptable for a minister in Egypt’s government to issue a decision that is inconsistent with the president’s thinking or with the nature and citizenship-based direction of the modern Egyptian state,” Greiche told Zawia3.
Coptic affairs researcher Shenouda al-Amir similarly believes the decision lacks justice and equality and fails to treat Christians as equal citizens. It divides holidays between denominations without adequately considering their demographic or doctrinal differences, creating a sense of discrimination and sectarianism, he says.
He says Catholics and Protestants receive fewer days than Orthodox Christians despite sharing some observances. This makes the division illogical and frustrates less-represented denominations. New Year, for example, is a cultural and social occasion celebrated by everyone rather than an exclusively religious holiday that can be allocated to one denomination.
“This problem is longstanding. Christians have become accustomed to feeling discriminated against in the allocation of holidays, particularly Christmas, Easter and Holy Week. The government’s decision treats Christians as denominations rather than one community, creating unjustified divisions,” al-Amir told Zawia3.
He added: “The latest decision appears to favour the Christian majority, the Orthodox, at the expense of other denominations, without a doctrinal or logical justification. As an official institution, the state should treat Christians as one community in celebratory and social matters, just as it treats Muslims as one group. It must protect everyone’s freedom to celebrate, including minority denominations and Baha’is.”
Al-Amir calls for the decision to be reconsidered, saying the current division entrenches discrimination and injustice. All Egyptians, regardless of denomination, should have religious and social holiday rights without discrimination, he argues.
Ignoring Denominational Diversity
Labour and rights lawyer Haitham Mohamedeen says this and similar decisions entrench religious and sectarian discrimination, contradicting official rhetoric about a state founded on citizenship. Citizenship requires full equality in rights and duties, whether between religions or between denominations within one religion.
He says Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Egyptians must have equal rights. The state often treats the Coptic Orthodox Church as Christians’ sole or largest representative, although other denominations have their own representatives and religious institutions and must not be ignored in decisions affecting their followers.
“This approach is clear at official occasions, where Christians are often represented only by the Orthodox Church, alongside representatives of al-Azhar or the Endowments Ministry, without regard for Christian denominational diversity. This is inaccurate and creates a flaw in representation and equality,” Mohamedeen told Zawia3.
He argues that religious festivals should be holidays for all Egyptians, Muslim or Christian. A festival is a public social occasion whose shared holiday can strengthen participation and belonging rather than divide those celebrating from those required to work as though it does not concern them.
Restricting holidays to members of one faith reinforces social separation, he says. They should not be labelled “holidays for Christians” or “holidays for Muslims,” but public holidays for everyone. This requires serious work to embed citizenship in public policy.
Mohamedeen criticises employers and officials who say there are too many holidays disrupting work. Working hours in Egypt are often very long and sometimes unlawful, he says, while holidays are workers’ basic right to psychological and physical rest, rather than a favour or burden.
“Christians had religious holidays, but fewer than Muslims because more Muslim religious occasions are officially recognised. The solution is not division or discrimination but making every religious occasion a public holiday for all citizens, since the state is neutral and does not belong to a particular religion,” he said.
Mohamedeen notes that the Labour Law provides a Muslim employee with one month of paid leave, once during their service, for the Hajj pilgrimage, and offers Christians equivalent leave to visit Jerusalem. He says the latter has been effectively obstructed by a national church decision against pilgrimage to Jerusalem while it remains under occupation, depriving Christians in practice of this leave. This is his account of how the provision operates.
“Justice and real citizenship require full equality in holidays and rights, without religious or sectarian discrimination. Policies or decisions violating this principle entrench discrimination and undermine a civil state based on citizenship,” he added.
Dividing Citizens
MP Freddy al-Bayadi believes the decision disregards both contemporary reality and history by relying on a 1953 ministerial decision despite changed laws, constitutions and social conditions. Some holidays, notably January 7, are now officially recognised public holidays for all Egyptians.
He says the governing principle should be shared occasions and holidays for Egyptians, rather than dividing them into denominations. He warns that the approach could allow further sectarian divisions, such as separate holidays for Sunni or Shia Muslims justified by differences in observances, which he considers unacceptable and unnecessary.
“The decision was issued without consulting any of the denominations whose holidays it specifies. Both the principle and the approach to organising holidays are wrong. It also uses ‘Protestants’ to refer to the Evangelical community,” al-Bayadi told Zawia3. He said official laws and decisions, dating back to the Hatt-ı Hümayun era, use “the Evangelical community” instead, indicating that the minister’s advisers did not consult the denominations concerned.
Excluding Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday from Catholic and Evangelical leave raises basic questions, he says: what is the basis for exclusion, and who decided these denominations do not celebrate those occasions? Determining citizens’ denominations creates another practical problem, since official papers record religion but do not classify denomination.
Al-Bayadi said the labour minister had requested a meeting to discuss the decision and that he would press for reconsideration because he rejected both its principle and implementation. Referring to the new Labour Law, No. 14 of 2025, he said it empowers the minister to organise holidays but does not require dividing Christians into denominations. If the measure concerns Christian holidays, they should be uniform without discrimination, he argued.
MP Evelyn Matta Beshay agrees that the decision was inadequately studied and misunderstands Christian holidays long observed in Egypt without difficulty. She says the state previously followed a clear approach respecting these occasions without needing new administrative inventions.
“Dividing Christians into denominations in an administrative decision creates a practical and legal problem because there is no denominational classification in official documents or identity cards. It makes the decision impossible to implement in the first place and reveals that it was not properly studied,” she told Zawia3.
Beshay considers treating major occasions such as Maundy Thursday and Palm Sunday as partial observances limited by working hours absurd. She describes them as established holidays observed by churches and countries, during which banks and major institutions close. This is her assessment of their status, rather than a claim that all countries apply identical holiday rules.
She says Christian holidays are protected by law and workers receive pay without deductions. Implementing the new decision could expose workers to penalties, force them to use emergency leave or subtract days from their annual allowance, practices she says were not previously applied in either the public or private sector.
Egyptian Christians have long celebrated according to their different denominations without causing workplace crises, Beshay says. Employees normally obtained religious leave before the president made January 7 a public holiday for all Egyptians, ending ambiguity about that date. Officials should study decisions before issuing them, she argues, describing this measure as failing to appreciate society’s religious diversity.
Drawing on her experience, she says Christian private-sector workers received paid religious leave through established custom and administrative practice, particularly at distant workplaces where burdening an employee or employer over one day was neither practical nor reasonable. She questions the timing immediately before the holidays and a new year, saying she had not witnessed comparable decisions throughout her parliamentary service, especially without consultation or public debate.
Beshay said she did not recall the new Labour Law addressing Christian religious holidays or dividing them by denomination. The decision could be reviewed, amended or revoked by a later decision, she noted. At the time, waiting for the new parliament to be formed limited immediate questions or briefing requests, but she expected strong parliamentary action once its constitutional procedures were complete.
Labour Ministry Decision No. 346 of 2025 therefore remained contested among officials, religious communities, legal experts and rights defenders. It raises questions about equality, fairness and citizens’ ability to practise religious observances without discrimination.
The responses point to a need for careful review to ensure fairness among Christian denominations, respect equal citizenship and prevent discrimination in workplaces. Dialogue with religious institutions and civil society is also necessary to align official policies with Egypt’s religious and social diversity and support national unity and social stability.
